Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
If you’re still sending resumes that simply re-hash your job duties, it’s going to be hard to stand out in this economy. Your resume pages (usually one or two at the most) should be considered valuable real estate. Any words or phrases that don’t pull their weight should be eliminated so you can fill the space with accomplishments.
Volumes have been written about when not to write. If you have something difficult to say, it’s best to say it in person, or so the advisors will tell you. Email (that’s how most business writing occurs today) is certainly not an ideal medium for tough conversations; it can be cold and impersonal. If you have a good relationship with someone, you want to temper your difficult conversation with personal signals; empathy is easier to express in person. But there are times when writing is the best medium.
Arthur Bell and Dayle M. Smith wrote “Difficult People at Work; How to Cope, How to Win” to help us work and live with people who make us crazy. The authors call difficult people SOP’s: Sources of Pain. They don’t try to minimize the pain you feel from difficult people; they simply try to help you manage to get work done and keep from strangling your coworkers (which this column does NOT endorse.)
Jodi Glickman is the author of “Great on the Job: What to Say, How to Say it” and she offers readers a step by step guide to success by saying the right things. Glickman offers scripts for getting things done at work, asking for help and managing priorities. They’re good scripts; as a manager, I can vouch for her expertise in guiding workers toward more successful outcomes. Here’s her formula for success when you have to ask for help.
E is for EXCEL. If you know you’re good at something, Glickman says, you should take every opportunity to offer your expertise to the team. This is especially true if you’re good at something people don’t like to do. Offering to proof a large and complex document or to organize an event is a way to make friends among your team members or develop a great reputation with people you don’t know well.
The Floor One relationship is usually transactional in nature. We encounter dozens of people a week with whom we exchange simple greetings: the barista at Starbucks, the mailman, the clerk who checks us out at the market. We ask “How are you today” without really expecting much of an answer, and others respond with “Fine, thanks” no matter what they’re really feeling or thinking.
Spaulding tells the story of applying for a prestigious Rotary scholarship, one that will give him a year of study abroad. By the time he applies, Spaulding is in college; he managed to find one small school that would take a chance on his academic record. He applies for the Rotary scholarship and is notified that he is one of ten finalists. Spaulding travels a very long distance back to his home town to meet with the selection committee. When he arrives at a local restaurant for the interview, he sees the group of tense and wary competitors lined up to wait their turn. The finalists’ name tags read like a Who’s Who of prestigious universities: Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. All but Spaulding’s, which read: East Carolina University. His spirits and confidence plunged as he considered the competition.
Honest feedback is a rare commodity; very few people will trust someone enough to open up and tell you exactly what they think. When you hear a piece of honest, thoughtful criticism, you should be grateful. Criticism is a gift; knowing where you stand is valuable intelligence, even when that knowledge stings. Here are some tips for dealing with criticism.
You should expect to be Googled and to Google people you’re going to meet. As Broughton mentions in his post, your conversation will be much better much faster if you can say, “I really liked the article you wrote on…” rather than simply commenting on the weather.
I love hearing from other bloggers – they offer great suggestions for reposts. Many people (including me) are taking time off this week, so I welcome the chance to offer a repost of a list of great reading for people in a job search. These 50 book suggestions come with short reviews and recaps, and all of them will be available at your local library. Enjoy!
